Bentley Systems, Incorporated (BSY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending December 31, 2022

February 28, 2023 8:15 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Eric Boyer

Good morning and thank you for joining Bentley Systems Q4 2022 Operating Results and 2023 Outlook Webcast. I'm Eric Boyer, Bentley's Investor Relations Officer. On the webcast today, we have Bentley Systems' Chief Executive Officer, Greg Bentley; Chief Operating Officer, Nicholas Cumins; Chief Investment Officer, David Hollister; Chief Financial Officer, Werner Andre; and Chief Technology Officer, Keith Bentley.

This webcast includes forward-looking statements made as of February 28, 2023, regarding the future results of operations and financial position, business strategy and plans and objectives for future operations of Bentley Systems Incorporated. All such statements made in or contained during this webcast other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. This webcast will be available for replay on Bentley Systems' Investor Relations website at investors.bentley.com. After our presentation, we will conclude with Q&A.

And with that, let me introduce the CEO of Bentley Systems, Greg Bentley.

Greg Bentley

Thank you, Eric, and I hope all of you have had a chance or soon will have to meet our new and very experienced Investor Relations Officer. And thanks to each of you, as always, for your interest and attention. Today, I and COO, Nicholas Cumins; and CFO, Werner Andre, will review our resilient 2022 Q4 and full year operating results. As the infrastructure engineering software company aligned global priorities and momentum from our three incremental growth initiatives, E365, Virtuosity for SMB and iTwin investments, reinforced our confidence for, again, a strong operational and financial outlook for 2023.

Today, we will also hear as I always enjoy from founder, Keith Bentley, who will be transitioning his Chief Technology Officer role at the end of this quarter and retiring later this year, and the investment community will hear for the last time from former CFO and current Chief Investment Officer, David Hollister, who will be retiring at the end of this quarter. As always, I will start with what's new in our tone of business. Our key operating results headline is year-over-year constant currency ARR growth consistent with our original and sustained financial outlook of 12.5% in business performance, which excludes ARR acquired with Power Line Systems.

For the quarter and for the year, this reflects robust and sustained momentum everywhere else in the world, making up for having lost Russia and for compounded headwinds in China. There, in addition to geopolitical concerns, which are not abating as evidenced by more recent developments to ring the fourth quarter's major annual selling season, the pandemic first caused a shutdown of our offices and then widespread sickness after the reopening. And as well, the government's intended infrastructure spending seemed to have been delayed. For the year 2022, for instance, as reflected in our anticipation last quarter, we would have exceeded our range of ARR growth outlook, if not for the regression caused by Russia and then knock on counter globalism in China. We are cautiously bearing in mind those risks in China in our outlook for 2023.